About

LEE ANN WOMACK

Artists
don’t really make albums like Lee Ann Womack’s THE LONELY, THE LONESOME AND THE
GONE anymore. Albums that seem to exist separate and apart from any external
pressures. Albums that possess both a profound sense of history and a
clear-eyed vision for the future. Albums that transcend genres while embracing
their roots. Albums that evoke a sense of place and of personality so vivid
they make listeners feel more like participants in the songs than simply
admirers of them.

Anybody
who has paid attention to Womack for the past decade or so could see she was
headed in this direction. THE LONELY, THE LONESOME AND THE GONE (ATO Records) —
a breathtaking hybrid of country, soul, gospel and blues — comes from
Womack’s core. “I could never shake my center of who I was,” says the East
Texas native. “I’m drawn to rootsy music. It’s what moves me.”

Recorded
at Houston’s historic SugarHill Recording Studios and produced by Womack’s
husband and fellow Texan, Frank Liddell (fresh off a 2017 ACM Album of the Year
win for Miranda Lambert’s ‘The Weight of These Wings’), THE LONELY, THE
LONESOME AND THE GONE marks the culmination of a journey that began with
Womack’s 2005 CMA Album of the Year ‘There’s More Where That Come From,’ moving
her toward an authentic American music that celebrates her roots and adds to
the canon. It also underscores the emergence of Womack’s songwriting voice: She
has more writing credits among this album’s 14 tracks than on all her previous
albums combined.

Womack
had made the majority of her previous albums in Nashville, where the studio
system is so entrenched it’s almost impossible to avoid. Seeking to free
herself of that mindset, Womack says, “I wanted to get out of Nashville and tap
into what deep East Texas offers musically and vibe-wise.”

So
Womack and Liddell took a band to SugarHill, one of the country’s oldest
continually operating studio spaces. In an earlier incarnation, the studio had
given birth to George Jones’ earliest hits, as well as Roy Head’s mid-‘60s
smash “Treat Her Right”; Freddy Fender’s ‘70s chart-topping crossovers “Before
the Next Teardrop Falls” and “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights”; and recordings
from Lightnin’ Hopkins, the Sir Douglas Quintet, the 13th Floor Elevators and
Willie Nelson.

Womack
found the lure of East Texas irresistible. "I love local things, and I
missed local music,” she says. “I grew up in Jacksonville. It was small, so I
spent a lot of time dreaming, and about getting out.” It required only a short
leap of logic to view Houston, and specifically SugarHill, as the place to
record.

Womack
and Liddell found a perfect complement of musicians, players who clicked right
away and became a one-headed band. Bassist Glenn Worf (Alan Jackson, Bob Seger,
Tammy Wynette, Mark Knopfler and others), drummer Jerry Roe (numerous
Nashville sessions and his band Friendship Commanders), guitarists Ethan
Ballinger, Adam Wright (Alan Jackson, Solomon Burke and others), and
Waylon Payne (son of singer Sammi Smith and Willie Nelson's longtime guitarist
Jody Payne) formed the SugarHill gang.
Engineer and co-producer Michael McCarthy, known for his production work
with Spoon, brought vintage gear from his Austin studio and help capture a
sharper sound for sessions recorded entirely to analog tape.

“I
got everybody out of their comfort zone and into a new element,” says Womack.
“And it was funky there. This place was not in the least bit slick. Everybody
there, all they think about is making music for the love of making music.
Everyone comes in with huge smiles and positive attitudes. It was much
different than what we were used to."

Womack
had brought a handful of songs to record, including the gospel-inspired
original “All the Trouble”; the poignant “Mama Lost Her Smile,” in which a
daughter sorts through her family’s photographic history looking for clues to a
long-secret sorrow; and the love-triangle conversation “Talking Behind Your
Back,” which she penned with Dale Dodson and Dean Dillon, the writer of several
George Strait classics. To make the final cut, Womack and the band had to be
able to get to the heart of the songs and shine their light from the inside
out.

A
trio of long-time favorites found their way onto the album, too. Womack joined
a long list of legendary voices irresistibly drawn to Harlan Howard’s “He Called
Me Baby,” putting a sultry Southern groove underneath its mix of sensuality and
sorrow. On “Long Black Veil,” a tale of betrayal and closely held secrets
that became a ‘50s classic as recorded by Lefty Frizzell, she taps into a
ballad tradition that runs centuries deep. Womack recorded the album’s final
track, a haunting version of George Jones’ “Please Take the Devil Out of Me,”
standing on the same gold-star linoleum floor where Jones cut the 1959
original.

Capturing
the reality of East Texas music isn't always easy. Being in Houston and at
SugarHill helped make that happen, inspiring an approach to the recording
process that everyone embraced from the first note played. "Music down
there — including Houston, Beaumont, Port Arthur and all the way through
Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama — is this huge melting pot,” Womack
says. “I love that, and I wanted that in this record. I wanted to make sure it
had a lot of soul in it, because real country music has soul, and I wanted to
remind people of that."

“When
you make albums, and aren’t just going for singles, you really have to treat
them with respect,” Liddell adds. “We did that at SugarHill, taking a bunch of
like-minded lunatics and seeing what happened."

In
Houston — with all its history, its eccentricity, its diversity and its lack of
pretense — those like-minded lunatics found a place where they could
flourish.

“We
all felt we weren’t going someplace just to make a record,” Womack says. “We
were going someplace to make a great record.”
Don’t just take her word for it, though. Listen. And when Womack and the
music take you there, you’ll find you want to stay.